Of Brothers and Uncles
by static-disturbed
Summary: It's been five years since Danny saw Louie. One shot. Features D/L's son from my story 'Protectors' but can be read without reading that.


**Title:** Of Brothers and Uncles

**Summary**: Little one shot. It's been five years since Danny saw Louie. Features Lindsay and Danny's son from my story 'Protectors' but can be read without reading that.

**Disclaimer:** Only Gian belongs to me.

**AN:** I switched the tense after I wrote the whole thing, I think I caught everything. And uh, I don't know, this was a little rushed but I like it =)

* * *

At first Danny thought he must be seeing things, because when it came to people he missed, he'd been known to do that. Except he wasn't. As they made their way into the playground, Gian darting ahead a few feet towards the empty and slightly overgrown baseball field, Danny was positive. He knew his own brother.

Louie was leaning against a chain link fence just outside the ball field. For people that didn't know, it's wasn't easy to tell what he'd been through, that he'd been beaten within an inch of his life. One side of his face seemed just a little bit crushed still and always would, noticeably sloped. It was the kind of thing people would pretend not to notice. Louie was slipping one hand out of what was constructed to look like a friendly handshake with a teenage boy who nodded a thank you before speed walking away towards a car of waiting friends. People pretended not to notice that too. Danny knew of course, it was his job to know.

Gian unknowingly ran right by his uncle and onto the field, prepared to practice lobbing balls into centerfield with his father. He had a bat hoisted over one shoulder, Danny was lugging the duffle bag of baseballs but his feet pulled him to a stop several feet from the gate.

"Vanni!" he hollered, "I'll be right there pal."

Louie looked up, unable to stop his brain from recognizing the voice that would always be programmed as familiar.

"Danny?" he straightened up just a little, adjusted the jeff cap on his head.

"Louie," he nodded back simply, unsure of how to greet the brother he hadn't seen in five years. The brother who hadn't bothered to call or write, to see or even inquire about his nephew that he hadn't seen since he was two months old. The brother that was now slipping a discrete hand into his pocket and shifting like a suspect.

"What're you doing here? You on a case or something?"

"No, no. I'm here with my boy," Danny pointed a finger towards the field where Gian was contently running the bases, pumping his fist in celebration of an imaginary homerun. "Giovanni," he reminded.

"I know," Louie insisted, his eyes following his nephews moves, "I remember. Jesus Dan, he's you when we were little."

"Yea," he managed a quiet laugh, "that's what they tell me. So uh, what are you doing here?"

Louie woke up from a coma three weeks before Gian came screaming into the world and spent the following three months recovering on their mothers couch. And then he'd been in the wind. Danny knew there had been a phone call or two placed to his mother, but nothing to him.

"Uh you know," Louie shrugged, "I was waiting to meet a friend."

"Oh, right," he feigned dumb and they both knew it was an act, "Well, you wanna meet Gian?"

"Uh," Louie looked away, "not now Dan. I don't want him to see me like this, wait till I get myself together, then I'll meet him, I can't wait man really."

"Oh yea," Danny inquired, finally stepping close enough to his brother to smell the stench of a wasted life on him, "When's that gonna be? Another five years?"

"Come on Dan, don't give me hard time," Louie shrinked away from him a little, not meeting his eyes.

"A hard time?" Danny shook his head, "A hard time would be me telling you to empty your pockets and put your hands behind your back."

"That's how it is now?" Louie scoffed, "willing to arrest your own brother?"

"You tell me how it is now? You were given a miracle Louie! You weren't supposed to get out of that bed, shouldn't even be able to talk right now. But you are. And the Tanglewood Boys washed their hands of you, you know a lot of guys would take that as a miracle within itself, nobody gets out alive. But you did. And here you are, hustling dope in a playground?"

"Danny…"

"Don't," Danny took a step back, "You saved my life a long time ago Louie and I'll always love you and always remember that. But you had a chance to do something real with your life an you threw it away. Just like you threw away any chance of ever getting to know your nephew."

It may have been the hardest thing he'd ever said and didn't realize it until after the words tumbled from his lips, left his stomach tight and mouth bitter. Louie was supposed to be out there on the field with him and his boy. Louie was supposed to be his son's God Father, his son's hero just the way he'd been Danny's.

"Don't say that," Louie swallowed a lump in his throat, his eyes following Gian one last time.

"In half an hour I'm calling a friend at narcotics and placing a tip about this playground. Good friend, owes me a favor. So I'd be gone if I were you, you and whoever else is lurking around here. And don't come back."

Louie stared at him a long minute before Gian's voice drifted over to them in the wind.

"Daddy, come on!"

"I gotta go," Danny shrugged, "my family is waiting for me."

"You know I'm sorry Dan," Louie called out to his retreating back, "I'm sorry I could never be that hero you thought I was."

"Yea," Danny agreed, "me too."

* * *

"Who was that guy?" Gian questioned later as they rode the elevator towards the crime lab, Danny heading in to report for his shift and to leave Gian with Lindsay who would take him home when hers ended in twenty minutes. "The guy you were yelling at at the playground."

"I wasn't yelling," he corrected and Gian quirked an eyebrow that Danny couldn't help but to laugh at.

"Alright, he uh, he's just somebody I used to know. He took a wrong turn though."

Gian open his mouth to say something, to dig deeper but the elevator doors opened a floor early and Don Flack stepped inside.

"Uncle Flack!" Gian was easily hoisted onto a hip and Flack pretended to strain.

"You're getting big Gman, what are you fifteen now?"

"Five Uncle Flack," Gian laughed, "same as I was at the Rangers game last week."

"Oh right, well someday you are gonna be fifteen and I'm gonna be old as crap. Don't tell your mother I said crap."

"Sup Mess," Don finally nodded in Danny's direction, "you're looking a little blue and I don't just mean your badge."

Danny made a face at the joke to which Don shrugged.

"Nothing man, I'm good now."

And he was. All of the guilt over Louie and worry that his son would never know his uncle had started to wash away as he watched the interaction with his boy and the man who had, at some point in time, become his brother. Gian had an Uncle already, the kind he could look up to and trust. The kind that could be a hero.

"Uncle Flack you should've seen me hitting grounders at the playground," Gian started excitedly and Flack listened intently. "Even daddy hit some, he's pretty good!"

Danny and Flack both laughed as the elevator doors slid open and they walked out into the lab to see the rest of their extended family.


End file.
